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Sunday 19 April 2026
Welcome to the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, Fourth Edition. Some sample entries appear below. Click here for the Introduction; here for what we mean by Science Fiction; here for the masthead; here for some Statistics; here for the Acknowledgments; here for the FAQ; here for advice on citations. Find entries via the search box above (more details here) or browse the menu categories in the grey bar at the top of this page.
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Watson, Ian
(1943-2026) UK teacher and author who lectured in English in Tanzania (1965-1967) and Tokyo (1967-1970) before beginning to publish sf with "Roof Garden Under Saturn" for New Worlds in 1969; he then taught Future Studies for six years at Birmingham Polytechnic, taking there one of the first academic courses in sf in the UK; he became a full-time writer in 1976, publishing around 200 short stories since 1969 at a gradually increasing tempo and with visibly ...
Tidyman, Ernest
(1928-1984) US journalist, author and screenwriter, author of the Shaft series of books about a Black detective, and of scripts for the Shaft movies, The French Connection (1971) and the supernatural Western High Plains Drifter (1973), among others. His sf novel, Absolute Zero (1971), is a Near-Future thriller whose protagonist becomes involved in Cryonics in an attempt to ...
Arnold, Jack
(1916-1992) US film-maker, born Jack Arnold Waks, who made a number of sf films during the 1950s. In World War Two, while in the Army Signal Corps, which was producing training films, Arnold found himself working with the great documentary maker Robert Flaherty and received an invaluable crash course in film-making. After World War Two he made several successful documentaries. This led to an offer from Universal Studios to direct feature films, beginning with Girls in the Night ...
Aliens Versus Predator
Videogame (1999). Rebellion. Platforms: Win. / The Aliens Versus Predator franchise began with the 4-issue Comic series Aliens vs. Predator (1990), written by Randy Stradley and published by Dark Horse, which already had licenses to produce Comics based on both Aliens (1986) and Predator (1987). This ...
Scientific Thrillers
Australian publication which may be regarded either as a Chapbook series or a Magazine: Digest format, monthly November 1948 to May 1952, mostly undated, initially published by Associated General Publications, Sydney, company name changed to Transport Publications from #3 (January 1949). 43 issues in all; page count varied from 32pp to 52pp. The uncredited editors were Alister ...
Langford, David
(1953- ) UK author, critic, editor, publisher and sf fan, in the latter capacity recipient of 21 Hugo awards for fan writing – some of the best of his several hundred pieces are assembled as Let's Hear It for the Deaf Man (coll 1992 chap US; much exp vt The Silence of the Langford 1996; exp 2015 ebook) as Dave Langford, edited by Ben Yalow – plus five Best Fanzine Hugos ...